holiday pay

dgrah

Our police and water plant employees can 'float' their holiday pay since their work schedules are not the typical Monday through Friday. Recently these departments decided to change their work shifts from 8 hours to 12 hours. This poses a problem since our personnel policy defines the Holiday pay as 8 hours. Some employees that have done this in the past were given the 8 hours pay, but had to pull any extra hours from their vacation bank to make up the difference if they chose to take the Holiday off.
We also have some office staff that chosen to work 4 ten hour days per week. When they are off for a Holiday they have been paid 8 hours for the Holiday, but have to make up the other 2 hours with vacation time or actual work time.
Are there other ways to handle this? If we give some workers 12 hours holiday pay and some 8 hours holiday pay are we opening up a window for dispute?
Thanks for any suggestions.

KathyHR

Our holiday policy does not specify how many hours for holiday pay, just what days we are closed. Our standard day is 8 hours. If we had employees who worked 10 or 12 hour days we would pay them what their normal working day was, 10 or 12 hours. I would handle any dispute from an 8 hour person by telling them that their co-worker works 12 hour days so they get 12 hours holiday pay, just as they work 8 hour days so they get 8 hours pay. I would handle vacation & sick time the same way, a 12 hour a day person would get 12 hours paid time. I would not penalize them because we approved a change in work shift or set up their work schedule of 12 hour days.

It might be a recordkeeping nightmare to keep track of who gets 8 hours or 12 hours but we're small so we could do it, but we aren't. x:D

Good Luck. Kathy

POPEYE

Almost ditto to Kathy. If an EE's normal scheduled day to work falls on a holiday that we are closed, they get whatever amount of hours they were scheduled for. If they are not scheduled for the day of the holiday, they get 8 hrs. regardless of what they normally work. If an EE works the holiday, they get their normal pay for the hours worked, plus the holiday pay applicable.

NaeNae55

We handle by using PTO bank, but our circumstances are different. We don't have any employees who are scheduled for more than an 8 hour day. We have 5 part-time employees though. Their holiday pay is pro-rated, so they make up the balance of the day from their PTO bank. If an employee is not scheduled to work on a holiday, they do not get holiday pay.

The PTO bank currently is just a combination of sick and vacation leave. We are thinking of adding holiday pay to eliminate any possible problems.

Good luck.

Hunter1

Our employees in that situation get 96 hours of holiday pay per year and use it by the hour. In other words, if they take a 12 hour day off, they utilize 12 hours of holiday pay and then have 84 hours left. We have a different situation in a one shift/day operation: they revert to an 8 hour day during 'holiday weeks', in other words, they work 8 hrs/day on the days they work, and take the 'regular' 8 hours of holiday time off to make up the fifth day.

Clare

We struggled with this also. In the end, we handled it the same as you are currently doing. All our benefits are based on an employee's "status" (hours they work per week). Someone who works 40 hours a week gets 8 hours of holiday pay. If they typically work four 10 hour days, they must use 2 hours of Paid Time Off if they want to be paid for a full 10 hours.

The benefit is the same whether an employee works five 8-hour days, or four 10-hour days - 8 hours of holiday pay.

Dutch2

We simply pay them the number of hours they were scheduled to work. If they noramlly work 10 hours on Tuesday and Tuesday is a holiday they are paid 10 hours holiday pay... This has not been a problem at for us to maintain and our ee's believe it is very fair.
Good luck

lorrie

Our situation is slightly different. We have warehouse employees who work anywhere from 6-12 hours per day, 5 days per week, each day is a little different depending on work load. We have drivers who work 6-12 hours per day, 3-5 days per week. (Some are only scheduled 3 days per work by choice.) Because no employee is guaranteed 40 hours, and some get frequent overtime, and everyday is a little different, we simply add 8 hours of holiday pay to every eligible employee's paycheck. Sometimes they come out ahead, sometimes they are shorted a little. I don't hear complaints about it.